


We open our eyes (cause we're told that we must)

by stardustachilles



Series: Acosmist (one who believes nothing exists) [14]
Category: Dysprosium
Genre: Alex is 26, Alex's childhood, Car Accident, F/F, Nightmares, Sara is 19
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-02
Updated: 2017-03-02
Packaged: 2018-09-27 20:33:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10047782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustachilles/pseuds/stardustachilles
Summary: Alex has a nightmare.





	

“...see you on the streets.”

The mouth the words had come from came into focus first, thick, pink lips, with wispy black facial hair on the upper lip. The rest of his face becomes clear next: the wide nose, the strong jawline, the dark brown almond shaped eyes, the thick eyebrows, and the freckles scattered over his nose and cheeks. Alex hates that face, despite how beautiful it is.

The hatred lingers even as she turns away, facing James now. “This is a bad idea,” he says, and his voice sounds far away. Alex gets the feeling that this conversation happened before, but she can’t place it. James leans against the locker behind him, an apprehensive look on his face, betraying his youth. “Aristotle is bad news.”

Alex punches him in the chest, smile on her face. “We’ve done this a hundred times before. Nothing happens.” She leans in close, staring into James’s eyes. “We’re invincible,” she whispers, and kisses James on the nose.

And then it’s night, they’re out of school, and James is in the passenger seat of her Mustang. Aristotle is in his Aston Martin, invisible until he rolls down the window to stick his head out and yell at her. Alex forgets the words as soon as they’re out of his mouth, and she revs her engine. The opposite streetlight is green.

It turns red. Three seconds.

Two.

One.

Their light turns green, and Alex and Aristotle peel away from the intersection at the same time. Alex pulls ahead, but they still have nearly three-fourths of a mile to go. It won’t take long. Alex’s speedometer is crawling up past one-hundred, one-twenty, one-thirty. Alex lets out a victorious laugh and risks a glance over at James. All she can see is his green Henley in the dark, and his hand gripping the door handle.

Alex saw Aristotle’s headlights in her rearview mirror and she presses harder on the gas pedal, as if it isn’t already against the car floor. The empty small-town Maryland street is lain out before them for the taking. And taking it they were.

Alex’s speedometer is pushing past one-fifty when Aristotle’s car catches up. He hits her bumper lightly, pushing her forward a meter, but it’s all part of the game. She’s in control when she swerves a little, moving directly in front of the Aston Martin. But then Aristotle does something unexpected, and pushes her car off the road.

Alex’s grips the steering wheel tightly as the car spins, wheels dragging on the gravel. Later, they say they were lucky the car didn’t flip. But Alex doesn’t feel so luck right now as the car hits a tree and there’s the sound of glass breaking and a flash of white and the next thing Alex knows there’s sirens, and everything is fuzzy and muffled at the same time. She tries to scream.

And then she’s at the hospital, and knows she remembers this because she and James are strapped into hospital beds rolling down a white hallway, and she can’t feel anything at all. Her vision fades out again and she’s in another hospital bed, this one more comfortable and there’s a beeping next to her head.

Her eyes open and there’s only white, and she has enough presence of mind to grab the clipboard attached to the side of her bed and she doesn’t have enough major injuries to warrant being stabbed with an IV. But James is in the other bed in the room so she pulls all the wires and tubes off of herself and slides out of bed and climbs in with his unconscious form, and she’s asleep again.

And then she and James are talking, and they’re both awake and healing and there are nurses rushing up and down the hallway. She has his chart in her hand and he has a minor concussion, a broken leg, and was rushed into surgery to remove a shard of glass from below his collarbone. (It was her fault. If she hadn’t raced, if she hadn’t—)

“It’s okay,” James is saying, but Alex isn’t listening. He has one of his hands captive and wrapped in hers and tucked under her chin. “It’s not your fault. It’s Aristotle’s.”

And it makes Alex feel even more guilty because it was  _ her  _ fault, if she hadn’t set up the race none of this would have happened, and she says so.

And James says, “There’s no way to stop you from racing. I’m glad it was me that got hurt instead of you,” and Alex nearly cries.

“I’m done,” she says with conviction. “Not again. Never again.”

 

And when Alex woke up, her hand flew to her face and she found tears there. She sat up in the dark room, and hardly noticed when Sara slid off of her chest. Sara woke up, but just barely. Alex thought she heard her mumble something along the lines of ‘what’s wrong,’ but it was so quiet that Alex wasn’t sure.

Instead, she said, “Go back to sleep, babe,” as comfortingly as she could in this situation before she slid out of bed. She padded quietly out of the room and into the hallway. The door to the guest room, which was basically James’s room at this point, was right at the top of the stairs and she opened the door as quietly as she could. It was chillier in there than the rest of the house; James slept with the window open.

He was sprawled across the bed on his back, limbs splayed out haphazardly. Alex crawled in next to him, and tucked herself beneath his arms with her head on his shoulder. She shoved her legs beneath the sheet and threw one over his thighs. Her hand rested on his chest, fingertips drawing over the raised, pink line diagonally from below his collarbone almost to his sternum. Six-point-six-four centimeters long — she remembered specifically. She’d never forget.

James hummed in the way he did when he woke up, eyes cracking slightly and focusing on Alex. His eyes flicked to her hand and flashed with recognition. He knew the nightmare. She had told him about it before, after the first time it happened. It didn’t happen as much as it used to. Only sporadically, now, without warning or preamble.

His arms wrap around her and tighten almost unbearably, but it was exactly what she needed to calm down. It isn’t long before they drift off back to sleep again, and Alex only felt a little bit guilty about leaving Sara alone.

 

Alex made her way down the stairs the next morning to the smell of coffee, which meant Sara must be up, because James was still asleep in the bed where she left him. Sara was at the counter in one of Alex’s shirts, head drooping as she waited for her mug to finish filling.

Alex came up behind her and set her hands on her hips, pressing a kiss to the back of her neck. Sara turned in her arms, leaning back against the counter. Alex pressed a morning-warm kiss to her lips and smiled, resting their foreheads together. “I’m sorry I had to slip out last night,” she said, tangling their fingers together.

“It’s okay,” Sara whispered back, even though it kinda wasn’t. Alex should have considered Sara before leaving selfishly in the middle of the night. “I fell back asleep before your side of the bed got cold,” Sara continued. She smirked, bumping her nose against Alex’s. “Barely even noticed you were gone.”

“Still,” Alex insisted. “I’m sorry.”

Sara shrugged, because she knew Alex’s wasn’t going to let it go, and she knew better than to ask. Sara pulled Alex back down to her mouth, tiptoeing slightly so she could reach Alex’s mouth. The coffee machine dinged but they ignored it, and instead stepped sideways a little bit so Alex could hoist Sara onto the counter and she could reach better. Sara sighed against her, wrapping her arms around Alex’s neck, and Alex felt just a little bit better.


End file.
